


Help Me

by Zoadgo



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Confinement, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Manipulation, Raven/Octavia on the side, Scars, Torture, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:23:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1553549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy can still remember exactly how Clarke screamed as the Grounders took her. Months later the Ark has come to Earth, the Delinquents have declared independence from the Ark, and everyone has written Clarke off as dead. Except for Bellamy, who can't give up that easily. He has to keep looking for her, and when he finds her he'll make sure she never hurts again. He has to tell himself that to keep the screaming at bay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finding

_Help me…_

_Bellamy…_

_Please…_

_Help me!_

_Bellamy sprints through the forest, trying to find the voice that’s coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. He has to find her, he has to find her_ now _. Something terrible will happen if he doesn’t. He calls out to her, screams at the trees that separate him from her._

_Bellamy!_

_Bellamy!_

 

“Bellamy! Wake up!”

Bellamy sits upright with a shout, drenched in sweat and shaking from his nightmare. Octavia jumps back from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting just moments earlier trying to wake him. He doesn’t even register her at first. He can still hear Clarke’s screams echoing in his ears, just as fresh in his memory as they had been when the Grounders took her months ago. He vainly tries to clear his head by rubbing his hands over his face, but he knows the screams won’t go away. They never do.

“You were having a nightmare?”

Bellamy just grunts in reply, levering himself out of bed and grabbing a shirt off of the floor. He begins to gather up the things he’ll need for his next hunting expedition. A better canteen, one of his replacement knives, more tarp, a warmer coat. He’ll grab some food before he heads out, but he packs light. Judging by the brightness of the sun he slept longer than he had intended to, and he needs to get back out there. Every second that he isn’t in the forest looking for Clarke causes the screams to grow louder.

“It’s good to see you back here, the camp’s missed you over the last few weeks.”

“Just back for resupply.” He says, not wanting to waste energy that could be spent looking for Clarke on a conversation.

“Bell, you have to stop doing this. You need to acknowledge the fact that even if Clarke’s not dead, we aren’t going to find her. There’s no trail to follow, and if she could escape from wherever they have her, she would have already.” Octavia uses her most reasonable, calming voice on him, but the words have the opposite effect on him.

“Shut the fuck up.” He growls, “You don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that. She’s out there somewhere, and I _will_ find her. It’s my decision if I want to die looking for her. And don’t call me “Bell” anymore. You’re the one who said I wasn’t your brother anymore.”

“Fine then, _Bellamy_.” She replies, a little bit of her temper flaring up, “But it’s pointless for you to die looking for her. We need you here at camp. You’re the best hunter we have, and you’re the leader that everyone’s waiting on.”

“I’ll be a leader again once I find her. And I’m not your best hunter. If I was, I would have found her by now.” Bellamy drags his hands over his face again, feeling weariness down to his very core. His voice drops to a whisper as he repeats, “I would have found her.”

“You really loved her, didn’t you?” Octavia asks, placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

“I still love her.” There’s no use in denying it anymore. In the first few days, Bellamy convinced everyone including himself that they needed to find her just because Clarke was valuable to the camp. But after Jasper, Raven, Octavia, Monty, and Finn had given up hope on finding her, Bellamy still couldn’t. He passed on all responsibilities of leading the camp to others, spending more and more time in the forest. As weeks turned into months, he knew it was more than wanting a valuable resource back, or even a friend. He loved his brave princess, and he had to get her back. It’s the only thing driving him anymore.

Octavia surprisingly pulls him into a hug and whispers in his ear, “I never really wanted you to stop being my brother, you know. I was upset, and then you’ve been gone. Even when you’re here, you’re gone.” She releases him and adds, “Go find her. Raven and I will run the camp while you’re gone, like always. You can grab a better canteen from stores, we just got our trade in from Ark-camp last night.”

“You’re trading with them regularly now?” The last thing Bellamy had done as leader was to declare the Delinquents’ independence from the settlers who had come down from the Ark. The Chancellor had agreed, making it clear that the action meant they would have to trade for anything and everything the Arkers had that they might need, and that even then the Arkers could just say no. Raven and Octavia must have smoothed over relations between the two camps a little if the Arkers were willing to trade regularly.

The girls do a good job of running things for him. Octavia is compassion and understanding while Raven is more actions and firm rulings. They balance each other well and seem to get along. Actually, now that Bellamy thinks on it, they get along really well. He doesn’t remember seeing the makeshift lean-to that Raven had been staying in when he was wandering to his tent last night, and he definitely didn’t notice any new shelters. Well, good for them. He cares about both of them, and if they make each other happy it’s obviously a good arrangement.

“Mhm. We’re getting more meat than we need now, with organized hunting parties, and none of them have bothered to learn how to hunt.”

“Mmm, good.” But Bellamy has moved past caring now. The screams in his head prompt him to rush out of the tent without further comment. He grabs a metal canteen and some roots that someone had dug up before he leaves camp, but he doesn’t linger a second longer than he has to. No one else is awake yet, but he still feels as if he’s wasting time.

The walls around the camp are far better constructed now, actual interlocked logs rather than just lashed together deadfall. There are only two gates, both constantly guarded by pairs of people. He takes the northern exit, nodding briefly to Jasper and a girl who he doesn’t know the name of. 

At the very least, his constant forays in the forest have given Bellamy the ability to move almost silently through the forest. He sets off to the northeast and quickly becomes surrounded by the sounds of birds chirping and animals rousing themselves in the early morning. At any other time, it might be peaceful. But Bellamy doesn’t know how to be at peace anymore.

He passes by a deer, close enough to have easily killed it with his axe, but he has no interest in hunting. He might kill a rabbit when he begins to feel the signs of starvation set in, but as long as he still has enough energy to keep going he leaves the animals unmolested. He has enough guilt on his conscience over Clarke that every time he kills something it drives him a little closer to the edge of insanity.

Of course, it was his fault, as Bellamy sees it. He had been teasing Clarke, as always, maybe a little harsher than normal due to the fact that they knew the people of the Ark were coming down. He was frightened, and he took it out on her. He had felt accomplished- _accomplished_ \- when she had stormed off into the woods. In the broad daylight, with the people of the Ark coming any day now, how would it have been dangerous? But then she had started screaming, calling his name, and Bellamy had started to fall apart. He’s still falling apart, every day he doesn’t find her.

He trudges of through the forest for hours, until the sun reaches its zenith. He knows that it’s in his best interest to take a break at this time, so he heads to a stream he remembers being nearby and pulls out one of the roots. They’re some tasteless form of tuber, but they give you enough energy to get by on and fill you up some, so he chokes them down. Bellamy takes a swig from his canteen and bend down to refill it from the rapid flowing stream, but then pauses as he sees something in the woods.

A flash of pale gold, just on the edge of his vision. _It must be the sun_ , he tells himself. But the sun is almost directly above him. He shakily sets aside his canteen and tries to avoid getting his hopes up. Perhaps he’s closer to insanity than he thought. Maybe he’s started seeing things. Seeing her. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. The object stays hidden behind the trees until he passes one and suddenly he can see, and he knows he’s not insane because Bellamy would have imagined her strong, happy, vibrant. She would tease him, or yell at him, or kiss him.

In front of him is a body that bears Clarke’s face, and her hair, but it doesn’t resemble Clarke anymore. Her hair has been hacked at clumsily, half of her head covered in patches of short hair and bald patches and scabs where they didn’t stop cutting at the root of her hair. The other half it still as long as ever, but is mostly matted with dirt and what seems to be- oh god, it is- blood.

Her face is still mostly recognizable as Clark, but her normally pale skin has become sickly and bluish white, as if she hadn’t seen the sun in the entirety of the time she’d been gone. But it’s difficult to tell what the true colour of her skin is now, because it’s covered in bruises. Red, purple, green, and blue new and fading bruises cover her skin as if a child had been allowed to paint on her. Several scars and open wounds crisscross her eyebrows, lips, and jaw. Her throat has distinct fingers marks bruised into the tender skin.

And the rest of her body… Bellamy feels all hope drain from him as he see the state of her. Her clothes are so tattered that they barely conceal anything anymore, and he wishes that they would cover more of the horror before him. Thick scars cover every inch of her, segments of skin have been flayed from her, and the angle of some of her limbs is definitely not right. One of her feet is almost black with bruising, and so swollen that he thinks it might have been crushed.

Bellamy feels tears creep from his eyes and choke his throat as he grabs her less damaged hand and grips it gently. He tries to call out to her in the hope that somehow she’s still alive, but the first time no noise escapes his mouth. He tries again and calls her name.

“Clarke, please. I found you. Please.” He sobs, over and over again, clutching her hand tighter every second that she doesn’t reply. 

Sobs rack his body as the last vestiges of hope leave him. He found her, and it was too late. He would do anything to bring her back, to save her, to heal her, but there’s nothing he can do. He screams his frustrations to the skies, before settling back into painful sobs that do nothing to ease the feeling of his soul shattering. She would never even know that he loves her.

But maybe it’s better this way. Bellamy looks at her damaged body once again and tries to imagine how long and painful it would be to heal from that. And who knows what they did to her mind. At least now she’s at peace. He leans forward to press a delicate kiss to her bloody forehead, the only affection he’s ever shown his love. And that’s when he hears a soft groan.

Bellamy’s head snaps up and he scans the forest, but sees nothing. Desperately trying to ignore the slight spark of hope that flares inside of him, he glances at the body in front of him. Are those shadows flickering across her face, or her eyelids flickering? Is she breathing, or is he imagining things? And then he sees her lips part around another groan, and the fragments of his soul suddenly snap back into place.

“Clarke. Clarke. Come back to me. You have to, you can do this, you can fight. Come back to me, my brave princess. My warrior. My leader. My love. Come on Clarke, you can do this.” He encourages her, his spirit soaring when he sees a crease form between her eyebrows as if she’s concentrating on something. He sobs and laughs and smiles and continues to talk to her until her eyes flicker open.

“Bell… my… you.. fou… me…” Her voice is the faintest whisper of an echo, but to him it is the sweetest music ever to have graced the Earth. She came back to him. He laughs with tears running freely down his face and leans closer as she tries to say something else.

“Please… Bell… Make it… stop… The pain… So… much…”

And Bellamy feels his heart stop. He remembers the last time he heard something like this, when he was in the forest with Atom. Another person he couldn’t save. And this girl in front of him, she had helped Atom, and helped Bellamy by taking the knife from him. Since then Bellamy had hunted countless animals, racked up an impressive kill count, but he can’t kill a person. Especially not Clarke. Not right after her found her.

“No.” He says in a broken voice and places a hand on the less beaten side of her face to quell her protests, “I can’t. Not you. I can fail everyone else, everyone else can die, but not you. Never you. I’m going to take you back to camp, and we’re going to fix you, and you will get better. And I’ll be with you the whole time. I’m never letting you go again.”

“I… c… an’t…” A tear creeps down the side of her face, and Bellamy gently brushes it away with his thumb.

“You can. You’re the strongest person I know. You’re a leader, a warrior. You can fight the pain, you can beat the injuries, and you can get better. You will get better. Understand me?”

Tears continue to leak from the corners of her eyes, but Clarke eventually gives a shaky nod and Bellamy smiles in relief. Her face then goes slack as she lapses back into unconsciousness, but Bellamy isn’t worried. Nothing bad can happen to her now, not now that he’s got her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I needed to write something darker in order to make sure I don't make my Rellarke fic too dark, and this is the result. Things are going to get worse before they get better, and I honestly don't know if this will have a happy ending, jsyk :)
> 
> Please leave comments/kudos, it makes my day when you do! Talk at me [on tumblr ](http://randommaces.tumblr.com)if you want, too.


	2. Fixing

Bellamy reaches the wall as twilight begins to creep in amongst the trees. He’d tried to splint Clarke’s limbs as well as he could and had taken the time to turn his tarp into a crude stretcher. The return trip had taken longer, too, due to him trying to avoid furthering her injuries any. Clarke hadn’t woken up on the trip back, which was probably good. Being dragged over uneven ground would be bound to hurt even a mildly injured person.

Jasper’s either still on guard duty or back on and he perks up when he sees Bellamy returning. He crosses the distance between them with a smile and glances at the tarp.

“Whatcha got there, Bella—oh my god. You- is tha- how- is she de- shit, I think I’m gonna be sick.” Jasper pales as he realizes just who the mangled body in the tarp is. But Bellamy grabs his arm in a bruising grip before the other boy can turn away.

“Yes, it’s Clarke. No, she’s not dead. But she might be if you don’t pull yourself together and get her mother.” Bellamy states in a flat voice, but his words seem to have no effect on Jasper, who’s still staring at Clarke. Bellamy sighs and steps into his field of vision.

“Jasper. Go to Arkdown, get Abigail Griffin, and bring her back here. I don’t care what you have to promise her, tell her the truth, lie, I don’t care. But you get her and you bring her here immediately. Do you understand me?” He almost growls the last, frustrated with Jasper’s impending mental breakdown causing them valuable time.

“Uh, yeah, I, yeah. Arkdown, Abigail Griffin, bring here. G-got it.” At Bellamy’s nod and release of his arm, Jasper turns and takes off running. 

Bellamy drags Clarke past the wall to where most of the camp seems to be gathered. Fucking vultures, the other guard must have told someone. Probably trying to help, but now the path between him and the new med-building is clogged with morbid lookie-lous. He’s glad that they had the foresight to build the med-building first. Even if they don’t have a doctor – they will when Clarke’s better, he tells himself- at least that building is cleaner than the forest and houses the medicinal herbs that they’ve managed to figure out in their time here.

“Bell!” Octavia pushes her way through the crowd to his side and pales when she sees Clarke, but she doesn’t comment or break down. He knows she’ll break down later, but for now she is strong, and he needs that. Raven follows closely behind her and immediately starts yelling at people and clearing a path. He follows Octavia into the building and helps her to lift Clarke onto one of the tables inside.

“What should we do, Bell?” He hears a waver in her voice and knows how she feels. With Clarke on the table in front of them, it seems impossible that they could help her in any way. But he pushes that thought out of his mind and sets his mind on the tasks that he can accomplish.

“Boil water, get whatever sterile dressings we have, and then we should start cleaning her up. I sent Jasper to get her mother.” Octavia gives a shaky nod and starts to work as Bellamy grabs Clarke’s hand one more time and whispers to her, “You just hold on, you hear me? You’ll get to see your mother again, and then we’ll make you better. Just hold on.”

\---

Jasper bursts into Arkdown at a full sprint, grabbing the nearest startled Arker and demanding in between gasps to be taken to Abigail Griffin. Thankfully the woman must have picked up the urgency of the situation, because she sets off at a jog without question, leaving him to follow her through the winding rows of makeshift shelters. 

None of them really realized how big the Ark was until everyone had come to Earth. They were supposed to come in stages, but shortly after the 100 managed to contact them and confirm that Earth was liveable, the life support systems experienced a critical failure. Everyone packed up and dropped to Earth over three days. And now, two months later, they had spread out through the forest and taken over a nearby field. Everyone was desperate for their own space, now that space wasn’t limited like on the Ark.

In a few thankfully short moments, the woman leads Jasper into a building that’s far better constructed than anything in the Camp, as the settlement of the original one hundred had become so creatively known. He would take a second to appreciate it, or consider how their buildings seemed a little more human and less artificial in the Camp, but based on what he’d seen of Clarke, that was a second he couldn’t spare.

The woman walks over to a blond lady who Jasper has no trouble believing is Clarke’s mother. She looks just as serious as Clarke was- no, is- as she writes something on a clipboard while listening to the woman. Jasper catches his breath and waits impatiently as she finishes whatever she’s writing and looks up at him.

“I hope you have something to trade, you know I’m not allowed to do pro bono work. What’s wrong with you anyway, if you managed to run all the way here but couldn’t fix it with your seaweed and flowers?” She looks almost sad as she mentions the payment, as if she’d like nothing more than to help everyone, regardless of which settlement they live in.

“Not me. We found Clarke.”

She stares at him for a moment before tears gather in her eyes and she claps a hand over her mouth as she struggles to get out a full sentence, “Clar- you fou- is she?”

“She’s alive, or she was when I left. But she’s in bad shape.” Before Jasper can finish the last part, Abbie is already grabbing med kits and vials off the wall, and yelling orders at the other people in the building. He doesn’t understand half of what she’s saying, but he thinks she’s setting things up to run in her absence. She grabs his arm and looks him dead in the eyes with tears still fresh on her cheeks.

“Take me to my daughter.”

\--

Bellamy pauses with a boiled rag pressed to Clarke’s arm and bows his head for a moment, struggling to keep his composure. _Just keep going, don’t stop working_ , he tells himself. He knows that if he stops for even a second, he’ll fall apart, and he can’t afford that luxury yet. So much has happened to him today, but the day’s not even close to over. He takes a deep shaky breath and continues to clean the dirt off of the limb in front of him. He figured that he would leave the cleaning of the actual injuries until Clarke’s mom could give him direction on how to do it properly.

His world narrow to the skin directly in front of him, processing as little of the world as he can. He doesn’t notice the worried looks Octavia keeps shooting him as she boils more scraps of fabric for cleaning. He doesn’t notice Raven standing guard at the door and keeping the curious Delinquents at bay. He doesn’t notice the commotion outside until he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up to see Abigail Griffin.

He’s only seen her once before, when they were officially declaring their independence from the Ark. She’s probably been to the Camp since then, but Bellamy’s hardly been there. Still, there’s no mistaking her as Clarke’s mother. Beyond the physical resemblance, they have the same no nonsense air about them, and apparently the ability to set emotions aside when the situation requires it. He puts down his cloth and steps back to allow her to examine Clarke more clearly.

“Come on, Bell, let’s give her some room.” Octavia attempts to lead him away, but he can’t leave Clarke alone.

“The only way I’m leaving Clarke’s side is if I’m dead, got it?” He growls, throwing off her hand. He knows, in some part of him that’s been silent for a long time, that he’s overreacting, but his control over everything is so tenuous right now that he can’t come close to being polite.

“It’s alright, Octavia, he can help me. Bellamy, right?” Abigail says before Octavia can object, beckoning Bellamy over.

“Yeah, I’m Clarke’s…” But what is he to Clarke, really? She’s everything to him, but she’s been in captivity for the last few months. He pauses for a moment before backtracking slightly, “I’m the one who found Clarke.”

“I gathered as much. You’re the only one who was still out looking for her every day. I do talk to my patients when I come to the Camp, if you’re wondering how I know that. Here, sterilize your hands.” She says, handing him a canister of something and a wipe that smells like the hospital wing on the Ark did. As he does this, Abigail bends over Clarke and examines every inch of her, cutting away the rags that were still hanging limply from Clarke’s starved frame.

There’s nothing attractive or sensual about Clarke’s nakedness. It’s like seeing a corpse, and for a second Bellamy has to watch her chest to make sure she’s still breathing. Abigail is thorough in her examinations, pulling on a pair of gloves and even gently probing some wounds to check the pain response on Clarke’s unconscious face. She eventually pulls a small scanner out of the kit she brought with her and uses it on some of the areas where the damage isn’t visible on the skin. After she puts the scanner away she gives Clarke an injection of what Bellamy assumes is a sedative or painkiller given the way Clarke’s face relaxes seconds after.

“Here, gloves. The good news is that if the casualty was going to die of these injuries, she would have already. So we’ve got that going for us.” Abbie sighs, “But the surface damage is the least worrying. There are multiple bones that have been broken and started to set wrong, plus one foot has been entirely crushed. I’ll need to break and reset a few limbs. For now, take sterile wipes and clean the surface wounds so we can see the true extent of the damage. None of those are bleeding though, so that makes our job easier.”

Bellamy nods and after watching her clean one wound, wiping the wounds from the edge away from the injury, he sets to work. Having wipes designed for this job makes it much easier, and with the two of them working with a focused mind they get all of her exposed flesh cleaned relatively quickly. Although the sight before them is still terrible, it’s not nearly as horrible as before. Abbie directs him in flushing and bandaging the injuries, not stitching any of them. He assumes there’s a reason, but he doesn’t waste time asking.

Under Abbie’s direction, Bellamy lifts Clarke’s torso so Abbie can clean and bandage the wounds on her back. Long lashes run parallel to her spine, some shorter stripes crossing them in places. He can almost hear the lash that caused them hitting her skin, they’re so fresh. Bellamy wants to run out and kill every Grounder he can find, but Clarke needs him here. They lay her back down and focus on the next task.

“Now the hard part. I’m going to need you to help me with this. Hold here, and hold tight.” She says, pointing at the top of Clarke’s thigh. He does as he’s told, once again not wasting time with questions. 

Abbie carefully positions her hands and lets out a hiss of breath before giving the leg in question a sharp twist and pull. Bellamy hears a crackle and the legs straightens out under Abigail’s guidance. She walks him through splinting the leg to maintain tension on the bone and ensure that it heals properly the second time. They go through this procedure with bone after bone, fingers and arms, toes and legs. Then, the only injury left untreated that Bellamy can see is her foot.

When Abigail looks at the foot she swears under her breath, and Bellamy guesses it must not be that easy to reset a crushed foot. Not that any of this has been easy. The sun was shining bright when they started, but now there’s only the faint glow of campfires outside the door. Someone must have come in with lamps at some point without him realizing. Abbie takes another moment and then speaks up.

“I’m not going to be able to fix this in one session. I’ll need to keep monitoring the foot and making readjustments as the bones set, or it’ll heal all wrong. So we’re going to make a full foot splint, arrange things as well as we can for now, and keep doing that until it’s fixed.” She says, and Bellamy knows she’s mostly saying it for herself. She sets about doing just that, having Bellamy build an improvised splint around her as she nudges bones back into place.

When the foot is splinted, Abbie gives Clarke another injection. “Antibiotics.” She says in answer to a question that Bellamy didn’t ask. She then pulls over a stool, covers Clarke with a blanket, and sits next to Clarke’s head.

“You should rest, Bellamy. I have to monitor her vitals, but it’s been a long day for you.”

“I’m not leavin-“

“Wouldn’t expect you to. At least lay down on the table over there before you pass out on your feet and I have two patients.” Bellamy hesitates a moment before acquiescing, understanding that she probably knows best.

He lays on the table with his back to the mother and daughter, telling himself that it’s to give Abigail some privacy. But he doesn’t even hear her gentle sobs and whispers over his own crying. He’s thankful no one checks on him. After everything today, he just needs to cry. Cry for the love he almost lost, cry for the love he found, cry for Clarke’s pain, cry for her suffering, cry for his suffering. He falls asleep with tears on his face and sobs in his throat.

\--

Abigail cries as quietly as she can, trying not to disturb the boy who’s weeping on the table behind her. He’s been through a lot, so much. He never gave up hope, not like she did. Although she wanted to believe Clarke was still alive, Abbie just couldn’t believe that in her heart. But then a gangly dirty boy had run into her hospital and changed that. She had a chance to save her daughter, to fix her.

But Abbie has to wonder if it will still be Clarke when she wakes up. With the damage to her body, what had the Grounders done to her mind? She knows her daughter is strong, but torture and imprisonment can break the strongest souls. She hadn’t let herself think of Clarke as “Clarke” while she’d been fixing her, but now the reality was creeping into Abbie’s mind that the girl in front of her might just be a casualty when she regains consciousness. She might not recognize her own mother.

So Abigail Griffin cries over her daughter. She cries for the guilt at having given up hope, cries for the fact that she still doesn’t have full hope, cries knowing that Clarke may still hate her for her father’s death, cries because the hope burning in her chest hurts so much. Eventually her tears run out and she checks Clarke’s vital signs. Pulse is faint, but regular. Skin is pale, warm, and dry. Blood loss, but no shock. Breathing is deep, regular, and strong. All promising signs. 

Time passes with regular checks of Clarke’s vitals. At one point someone brings in roast rabbit, and Abbie eats half of it and puts the other half aside for Bellamy. Much as she might like to give it to Clarke, it would probably make her sick given how starved she seems to be. The nutrition paste that Abbie has in her kit will go down easier, maybe with some broth if she can get some. The anaesthetic wears off and Clarke remains unconscious, but Abbie expected that. This much trauma will put her body into recovery mode, which requires a lot of sleeping.

Clarke and Bellamy continue to sleep, so she gathers the rabbit bones and cooks some weak broth. When she turns around after removing it from the flame, Clarke’s eyes are open. Her focus is a little hazy from the painkillers, but Abbie still tears up and rushes to her daughter’s side at the sight of her awake and alive.

“M… Mom?” Her voice is so weak, it brings more tears to Abbie’s eyes.

“Yes, sweetheart, it’s me. I’m here.” She gently holds the hand that Clarke reaches out to her.

“You… I… Thought… Thought Bellamy was… here…” Clarke’s voice keeps fading as if she doesn’t have enough energy to speak, which she may not. 

“He’s here, he’s the one who found you. Bellamy.” She says, raising her voice at the slumbering boy. He bolts upright with panic on his face, probably fearing something bad has happened to Clarke. When he sees her awake he runs to her side, even though he’s only a few steps away from Clarke. In that moment Abbie realizes why he never gave up on Clarke. He loves her, and Abbie couldn’t imagine anyone better to love her daughter. Some of her worries about when she has to go back to Arkdown begin to lift. 

When Clarke releases her hand to reach to him, Abigail feels a her heart break a little. She’s not the most important thing to her daughter anymore, and probably never will be again. She knows why, betrayal and lies on the scale she took it to are hard to forgive, but it still hurts. She decides to take a walk and leaves Bellamy and Clarke to their reunion.

\---

“Couldn’t… let me… die.. huh?” Clarke says with a weak laugh, and Bellamy lets out a tear soaked laugh of his own in return.

“No. No death for you. Camp needs a Princess after all.” Bellamy’s smile doesn’t even begin to mirror the joy in his heart.

“’Course… Just the… camp…” Her smile is faint, but it sends his heart soaring higher than he ever thought it could.

“Well, maybe I need you too. Just a little.” He kisses her on the forehead. The time for pussyfooting around emotions passed a week after she disappeared from his life. There would never be any doubt in her mind that he loves her, if Bellamy has any say in the matter.

“I knew… it would be you… to find me… You… never… give up… Stubborn…”

“Yeah, that’s me. And I did find you. Now I just have to make sure I don’t lose you again.”

“Won’t…” And Bellamy swears his heart will burst from his chest with that one word and they pause for a while, just sitting with each as he’d dreamed of for so long now. Of course she was never injured in his dreams, but it’s a start.

“How long… was I…”

“Not sure, I-“

“A little under three months.” Abigail cuts off Bellamy’s explanation of how he lost track of the days in his forest wanderings as she returns to the building. She picks up a metal bowl and pulls out a package that he recognizes as nutrition paste, “Think you can eat?”

Clarke gives a shaky nod, and with a spoonful of nutrition paste and a bowl of broth, her healing begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there's issues, editing this at 2am after my "Thursday" shift probably isn't the best idea, but oh well. I hope you all enjoy this chapter as much as you did the previous one! I gotta say, the feedback I received from all of you was amazing!! You are all the biggest sweethearts on the planet <3
> 
> Now, explanations for why the medical aid was what it is;
> 
> Open wounds- No stitching those after the first 8 hours! Given that Abigail didn't know when the injuries were sustained and none of them were bleeding, it's best to just clean them and bandage them.
> 
> Broken bones- Splinted instead of put in casts because splints are easier to maintain in a location like the Camp and you probably wouldn't want to encase open wounds in a cast for any length of time. Also, the splints can be removed by anyone, so they won't have to pay Abigail to come back to remove them and they won't have to pay for the plaster and fabric for a cast.
> 
> Crushed foot- I forgot to ask about how this would actually be treated, so I based it off my basic knowledge of first aid and a treatment I read in a story once. 
> 
> Antibiotics- Good in this situation, but important to note that antibiotics are not the solution for everything! They will do nothing for viruses, only bacteria.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to everyone who commented/read/left kudos, feel free to talk to me [on tumblr!](http://randommaces.tumblr.com)


	3. Fighting Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here there be torture

_Clarke wakes up in a cave. She remembers the Grounders grabbing her, dragging her away as she screamed for Bellamy, for some reason. Then everything had gone black and she had woken up here, held standing up by ropes biting deeper into her wrists every time she loses the strength to support herself. When she moves her head to look around, the Grounders come for her again. And the pain starts._

_A blow to the face that splits her eyebrow and causes a torrent of blood to course down her face is just the beginning. Fists fly, connecting with her head and torso. For what seems like hours there is only the sound of her own shouts, colliding flesh, and on occasion, snapping bones. She begins to scream the first time a fist connects with already fractured ribs._

_She screams for them to stop. Begs them to stop. Asks them what they want with her. But the whole time the Grounder in front of her never even removes his mask. No replies, no emotion, Clarke could almost imagine a statue is beating her until blood flies from her mouth with every shout._

_And then it stops, and she’s relieved. Still in intense pain, worse than anything she’s ever felt, but it’s over. Only it isn’t. The bludgeoning statue leaves her and another Grounder, one with the bottom half of their face exposed, approaches with a blade at their side. A small blade, but it looks wickedly sharp, sharper than anything they have in their camp. She thinks of the scalpels her mother had used, and her body recoils, trying to get as far away from the blade as possible. But she can’t escape._

_The Grounder smiles as she struggles to escape, and suddenly Clarke doesn’t know if she’s trying to escape the blade or that smile. A smile that wants to consume her, wants to see her suffer. A smile with pointed teeth. The smile purrs as it reaches her and strokes the blade’s edge almost lovingly over her skin, ceasing all her struggles. Her body trembles with adrenaline and fear and pain. Then the smile evolves into a grin and the blade digs into the flesh of her thigh. The cut itself is almost painless, a testament to the sharpness of the blade, but the pain follows soon after like an eager dog following its master._

_And Clarke realizes she didn’t know what pain was before this._

\--

Bellamy wakes in the med-building. He’d refused to leave Clarke’s side even after she’d woken and eaten a little and gone back to sleep, and so had her mother. He’d slept on the other table and even though it’s hard wood, he’d slept better than he had in months. He had Clarke back now, and the screams that had been his plague and constant unwelcome companion were gone. He smiles, but his smile turns to a look of worry as he glances at Clarke and sees her creased brow and faint struggles in her sleep.

Bellamy rushes to her side and hesitantly traces a hand over the shoulder that they hadn’t needed to relocate the night prior.

“Clarke, come on. Wake up. It’s just a dream.” He calls to her, waking her mother in the process. Clarke’s eyes flutter for a moment longer before they open sharply and she gasps.

“Bell…” Her voice chokes off and she begins to cry. Before her mother can respond, he gently gathers her in his arms, mindful of her injuries and trying to avoid the worst of them. He strokes what’s left of hair and mutters encouragement into her scalp, telling her how strong she is, how it’s all over now, how nothing will hurt her ever again. He holds her safe from the dangers of the world in his arms.

Her hysterics calm with time and Bellamy’s soothing ministrations, and her mother places a soft hand on her back, above the bandaging that covers her lashes.

“Clarke, sweetheart, what were you dreaming about?” Clarke just shakes her head against Bellamy’s shoulder in response to the question from Abbie. He feels his protectiveness rise and he wraps his arms a little more securely around her.

“If she doesn’t want to talk about it, she doesn’t have to.” He’ll do anything to alleviate the pain that caused Clarke to cry into his shirt.

“If she doesn’t talk, it’ll harm her mental and emotional stability. We need to know what happened to her, and she needs to know she doesn’t bear that burden alone.”

Bellamy’s conflicted for a moment, wanting to help Clarke get better in the long run but not wanting to hurt her in the short-term. But then Clarke decides for him, still making no move to escape from his embrace.

“I don’t know what happened to me… I… remember being taken… And then… Bellamy found me… But I think that I was remembering in that dream.” Her voice is muffled in his shirt, but so much stronger than it was the day before that Bellamy can’t help but feel a thrill of joy in his chest.

“What were you remembering?” Bellamy wants to punch Abigail for pushing Clarke, even though he knows she’s trying to help. He makes a mental note to work on getting his people skills back up to par.

“I… They tied me up. I was standing. And then… One of them started to hit me. Again and again and…. He broke my ribs and kept hitting. And then he left. And then smile came in.” He feels her shiver in his arms and cups a hand around the back of her neck, stroking a thumb up and down her spine in an attempt to soothe her, “They… I think it was a girl… She had a knife. Small and sharp. Didn’t even hurt when it cut me. Hurt after. And the smile… her teeth… They were sharp. Pointed.”

“Did they say anything? Did they try to get information from you? Why were they hurting you?”

Clarke lets out a shaky, tear-filled laugh. “I wish I knew. They wouldn’t tell me. Wouldn’t say anything.”

“Okay.” And Abbie stops her pushing, allowing Bellamy to finish calming Clarke down until she pushes gently on his chest. He lays her back down carefully as Abbie heats up some more broth and gives Clarke another shot of painkillers. He follows Abigail outside when she beckons him.

“I have to go back to Arkdown.” She holds up a hand to stop him as he starts to protest, “Clarke’s stable now, and if I stay any longer I probably won’t be able to convince Jaha to waive to fees for this. It’s already going to be a fight. I’ll leave you painkillers and antibiotics. One shot each morning, and then I hope you have something for when that runs out.”

“Seaweed and we have a mix of flowers that’s decent as painkillers.” He answers, receiving a nod of approval.

“Good. I’ll come back as soon as I can to check on her healing, but you need to keep her from moving as much as possible. Help her with everything you can. And make sure that you slowly work her up to solid foods, and don’t add more than a tiny bit of meat until she’s on a full solid diet.”

“Okay. Trust me, Ms. Griffin, I’m not going to let anything happen to her.” Bellamy tries to impress on her how serious he is in this. It works, Abbie smiling and placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I know. And I think you can call me Abbie now, after everything we just went through.”

Bellamy nods in return and she leaves him to go gather her tools, presumably. He lets out a long exhale and leans against the wooden wall next to him. It’s going to be hard, seeing Clarke so weak and vulnerable. But he’ll be strong for her, no matter how shaky he feels. She makes him strong, makes him a warrior. He looks over as Abigail leaves the med-building once again with a much smaller kit in tow.

“Everything’s marked. Keep an eye on the dressings, and come get me if anything happens. Oh, and Bellamy, you have to get her to talk about what happened. I don’t care how much it hurts you to hear it, or to see her reliving it. She needs to get everything out, otherwise the damage will never go away, even after the scars fade.”

“I… okay.” He knows he has to, but he doesn’t have to like it. An awkward silence grows before Abbie gives him one last nod and walks briskly out of the camp. Bellamy takes one more moment for himself, one moment to feel his own aches and pains and insecurities before re-entering the building and pushing that all aside for Clarke.

“Hey.” Clarke’s drug hazed eyes find him immediately. The simple word draws a smile out of him, a word spoken in a voice already stronger than yesterday.

“Hey yourself. Your mom went back to Arkdown.” He sits next to Clarke and leans on the table.

“Arkdown?”

And then it strikes Bellamy that she doesn’t know anything. He might be a little out of touch due to his extended searches of the forest, but Clarke was taken before any of the Arkers touched down.

“Yeah, it’s a long story. Arkdown is where the people who came down from the Ark live.”

“Why don’t we live there? And give me the long version, I’ve got nothing but time.” Bellamy should have known that even painkillers wouldn’t dull Clarke’s mind and curiosity.

“Alright, I’ll try to explain it all. Basically, when the Ark came down, I declared independence from them. The Delinquents, as the original hundred and two are now known, stayed where we already were. Some people joined us, tired of living in a society where working hard doesn’t improve your station. Now, we live in the Camp, and everyone else lives in Arkdown.”

“But why the separation?”

It’s a good question. At the time, it had seemed so important to Bellamy. There had been reasons to his actions, back before Clarke had become the only reason for everything he did. What had his reasons been…

“We… we needed to be able to rule ourselves. We had done so well, built a society, built a settlement. They would have torn down the camp and assimilated us into their society. We deserved better than that. And if we had joined them, they never would have let me look for you. Not for this long.”

There’s a pause when Clarke processes the information, a familiar crease forming between her eyebrows. He waits, knowing she’ll have another question. He’s not sure what she’ll ask, but he’ll answer as well as he can. The time for secrets is long past.

“Why did you keep looking for me? Why did everyone else give up?” There’s pain in her voice, pain from a place deeper than painkillers can touch. He wants to soothe her by telling her it’s not their fault, but that would be a lie.

“They gave up because they thought you were dead. They couldn’t see any hope, and they needed to move on.”

“And you?”

“I couldn’t move on. Not without my princess.” He smiles and brushes back her remaining hair, pausing with it in between his fingers, “We really should do something about this. What do you say, wanna be a bald badass?”

Clarke looks up at him in confusion, and Bellamy remembers that she doesn’t know what they did to her, so she wouldn’t know the state of her head and body. He explains that half of her head has been shaved anyway, and she agrees to let him shave the rest of her head.

He takes his time, using the sharpest knife in the camp. With deft strokes of the blade he dispatches her remaining hair and thankfully doesn’t discover more injuries beneath it. He sweeps it out the door when he’s done and carefully wipes Clarke’s scalp down with warm water, taking extra care around the wounds from the Grounder’s ministrations.

When he’s done, Bellamy gently holds Clarke’s jaw to inspect his handiwork from every angle.

“Beautiful.” He breathes, astounded at how much stronger it makes her seem, as if such a thing was even possible.

“Really?” The uncertainty in her voice hurts him, it hurts him that she thinks she could ever be anything other than beautiful.

“Always.”

\--

_The ropes on her wrists are the softest silk to ever grace the face of the Earth. They are wisps of cloud, pure sunshine. They allow her to support her weight, allow her to lean on them. She loves the ropes._

_Statue is back today. She assumes it’s a new day, but really all she knows is that she passed out after Smile left. Maybe they work shifts. Statue walks to her, and she doesn’t try to pull back. Clarke may be many things, but she’s not stupid. Even though part of her is screaming at her to try and flee, she knows she can’t escape. Trying to will only reopen the wounds that Smile had left… everywhere._

_She tries to meet the eyes behind the mask, to impart some emotion through her eyes that will make him stop, but the eyes are as cold as stone. Statue is a good name for this one. Clarke braces herself for the blows, knowing it won’t help in the end. But Statue doesn’t hit her again. He grabs her hand, splaying her fingers open to the air. There isn’t a pause, isn’t any warning between him grabbing a finger and- snap._

_It sounds like a twig breaking, but the shout that accompanies it marks the snap as belonging to Clarke’s previously whole finger. Pain blossoms like a wildfire, burning along her nerves and causing her body to spasm involuntarily._

_Snap._

_Snap._

_Snap._

_Statue is methodical. One could almost count time to the pace of her fingers breaking. But time has no meaning to Clarke right now. Her fingers are mutilated and her spasming has broken open barely closed wounds. She is trapped in a vortex of pain. It drags her in and holds her, not allowing her the bliss of unconsciousness. Not until Statue has finished. 6 snaps total._

_Then the ropes hold her again, and Clarke wakes up screaming._

\--

Clarke’s screams wake Bellamy, as they do most mornings. He reaches up from his position on the ground next to her and grabs what he knows will be her right arm, the least painful part he can touch. He’s kneeling next to her and starting to calm her down before he’s fully awake.

It had become their routine. Clarke wakes up screaming in the tent that was once Bellamy’s and is now theirs, Bellamy strokes the peach fuzz on her head and holds her hand, Clarke recounts her memories, Bellamy gives her a shot of painkillers and records the memory as Clarke drifts back into sleep. When she wakes up a few hours later, he has food ready for her and they start their day.

But today, when Bellamy reaches behind him for the familiar syringe, his hands meet only air. There’s a sinking feeling in his chest as realization sinks in.

The painkillers have run out.

Clarke wipes away her tears and looks up at him, concern on her face probably due to the panic on his.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s… uhm, the painkillers. They’re gone.”

“You mean someone took them?” And there’s alarm in her voice, understandably. Painkillers are valuable. But Bellamy knows that no one would risk it, not stealing from him when they saw what he did to the boy who’d suggested they stop giving Clarke the best bits of food. Apparently he’s fitting in quite well at Arkdown, and it will only take a year of unpaid work for him to pay back the medical costs.

“No. There’s no more. We used them all.”

“It’s okay, Bell, we’ll get through it. We always do, yeah?”

And that’s the best thing about her recovery. As she grows stronger, Bellamy gets his warrior princess back. The girl who isn’t afraid to tell him off, who forgave him for his mistakes, who doesn’t back down from any fight. He laughs lightly, feeling more like himself as she comes back to him.

“Of course. Just don’t expect me to hold your hand the whole time.” He teases, loving the smile that lights up her face.

“Well, you’re holding my hand right now, soo…”

“I’ll stop any second now, just you see. And then you’ll be on your own and you’ll be begging me to come back.” She laughs at his light tone.

“And you will.”

“And I will.”

They stay still for a moment, enjoying the easy companionship between them. Bellamy would be more than happy to just stay in this moment forever, in the time between lucidity returning to Clarke and the pain hitting, but he knows it’s impossible. Raven was going to come by today to go over more political details with them, updating them on the trade agreement with Arkdown, but he knows that the pain will hit Clarke soon. So he steps away from Clarke and leaves their tent with a rueful smile, hoping she can at least get a little rest before all the drugs leave her system.

He finds Raven next to the tent that she shares with Octavia. Hardly anyone else in the camp is up yet, but they still wake up early to be acting leaders until Clarke is better. Raven presses a quick kiss to Octavia’s lips before heading over to him as Octavia jogs off to start whatever tasks need doing that day.

“Couldn’t wait to get started on all the boring trade talk?” She smiles at him, but it falls when she sees the concern on his face, “What’s wrong? It’s not Clarke, is it?”

“No. Well, yes. The painkillers. We ran out, so I don’t think that Clarke’s going to be in much of a state to learn stuff today.”

“We could try to get some more… they’re not cheap, but I think we can figure something out…” He can see her trying to do the math in her head, figuring out what they can short themselves in order to keep Clarke in comfort. He stops her by placing a hand on her arm.

“I’ll figure it out. I can hunt, trade my own stock. I’ve been a burden long enough. It’s time to start contributing again.”

To her credit, Raven doesn’t try to convince him with false platitudes that he isn’t a burden. Bellamy knows that him and Clarke have been a huge draw on supplies without contributing anything. He couldn’t possibly ask everyone to sacrifice even more so that he can get painkillers that Clarke can probably manage without, however uncomfortable it will be for her.

“Well, we can resume getting you caught up whenever things are… a little easier for you two.”

“Thanks, Raven.” With a friendly clap on the shoulder she turns and walks away.

Bellamy heads in another direction, to the med-building that had housed Clarke for the first few days as he’d built a decent stretcher to move her back to the tent on. Once inside he heads straight to the drying racks and bins of preserved herbs and vegetation. They’re marked descriptions of their purposes, and he grabs a bunch of painkiller flowers, some form of moss that says “calming”, but passes over the antibiotic seaweed. He vaguely remembers learning that exceeding recommended dosages of antibiotics can be harmful, and Abbie hadn’t told him to use more. He’ll wait and ask her on her next visit, until then he decides to just keep a close eye on Clarke’s injuries. 

When Bellamy returns to the tent, Clarke is awake and her eyes are bright. All traces of the drug haze seem to have burned off, but that means that pain leaks through and colours her smile. He smiles back before taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” He hesitates to touch her, no longer certain of how much she’ll be hurting.

“Oh, just peachy.” Sarcasm is a good sign, Bellamy decides, “But I can manage this. As long as I don’t move, or breathe too heavily, it only feels horribly painful.”

He wishes he could take her pain, but he honestly doesn’t know if he’ll be able to bring in enough game to trade for painkillers that will last more than a day or two. They’ll have to hope that her own strength and the mix of herbs is enough to carry them through the worst of it.

“Well, I’ve got a little something that should help. Just give me a minute to boil some water.”

“Any chance you can boil that water in less than a minute?”

He shakes his head ruefully and hands her a few of the flowers to chew on. Maybe it’ll do something, at least it’ll take her mind off the pain slightly. He doesn’t let the water boil fully before throwing some of the herbs in and pouring it into a cup. With a bit of struggling, some pained whimpers, and a lot of “sorry”s on Bellamy’s part, they get Clarke into a semi-sitting position.

The first few sips of tea do nothing, but then she relaxes a little. Only a little, but at least it’s something. More cups of tea are downed before Clarke eats anything, easing Bellamy’s worries that the pain will cause her to lose the little bit of weight she’s gained back. But by the time the sun is starting to set, she still hasn’t let him change her bandages.

“Clarke, I have to. You know I don’t want to hurt you, but those wounds getting infected will hurt far more than me changing the dressings.”

“Bell, I can’t. It’s not too bad sitting here, but I… I just can’t. Not with only this tea to go on. We need some stronger herbs.” She says a little shakily. And then Bellamy has an idea.

“I’ll be back in a second.”

“Bellamy!” She calls after him in confusion, but he’s already rushed out of the tent. He jogs across the dim camp, ending up at a tent that’s emitting some noises that would be worrying if he didn’t know that a tinkerer lived inside.

“Monty! I need some moonshine.” He doesn’t open the flap of the tent, not since the last time ended up with him getting zapped by a stray wire from some machine that Monty was trying to fix or build or modify. Soon enough, a friendly head pops out of the tent.

“Bellamy! Not throwing a party without me, are you?” He hands over a steel canister with the joke, not that large, but big enough for Bellamy’s purposes.

“Not quite. I was just trying to figure out what the best painkiller in camp is. The upside of your moonshine is that no germs can live in it.” He jokes with a laugh.

“True that. Give Clarke my best!” Monty winks at him and disappears back into his tent, obviously eager to get back to whatever he’s working on. Bellamy chuckles quietly to himself and takes off at a jog.

Clarke eyes the container suspiciously until he tells her what’s in it, at which point the scepticism turns into excited grabby-hands. He laughs a little, earning a glare from her over the rim of the glass she’s chugging moonshine out of. He only gives her a little, wanting to save it and knowing it won’t take too much to get her drunk enough that he can change her bandages.

Sure enough, within minutes she’s giggling lightly as he takes off the skins she wears in place of real clothes until her splints are gone. Okay, maybe he gave her slightly more than she needed.

“Never thought that you’d be seeing me naked this often. Although, I didn’t think I’d get captured and tortured by Grounders, sooo…” She draws out the “o”, not bothering to complete the sentence.

“Trust me, I wish I’d been seeing you naked under other circumstances.” Bellamy pulls off her bandages and grabs a damp cloth from the pot of boiled rags they always have handy. He gently wipes her skin, pleased to see that the hollows in her joints are starting to fill in and her ribs and hip bones are no longer so painfully stark.

“You wanted to see me naked?” Bellamy laughs lightly and smiles at her.

“You can’t pretend you didn’t notice. Not at the beginning, sure, but as time went on. When we started making decisions together. Probably after the trip to the supply station, actually.” He had thought about her for a long time before she’d been taken, before his crush had revealed itself as full on love for her.

“Huh, I really am oblivious, aren’t I? I mean, I’d thought about you of course, but what girl in the camp hasn’t. Except for Octavia, I guess.” Bellamy doesn’t look up from where he’s re-bandaging her back, taking a second to process this new information before replying.

“You had thought about me, huh? What about now?”

Clarke clears her throat and he glances up to see her cheeks turning slightly pink. Bellamy grins to himself, loving seeing his normally collected princess all flustered because of him.

“Could you maybe ask me when I’m not topless and tipsy?” They laugh together at that as Bellamy lays her back down. He brushes his lips against her forehead before covering her with her furs and a blanket.

“Of course, whatever my princess commands.”

“Right now, your princess wants sleep. So go to sleep, serving boy.” She waves him away mockingly.

“Serving boy, am I? Now, why should I obey a princess who’s so rude to me?” He teases with a smile.

“Mrr, fine, you’re my brave knight. Just go to sleep.” She says as she adjusts her blankets and closes her eyes, clearly ready to fall asleep before the pain breaks through the booze again.

“I can live with that. Goodnight Clarke.” He lays down on the ground next to her, holding her muttered “Night Bell” in his heart like a spell that will keep him safe until the morning. If only he could do the same for her, say something that would keep the Grounders out of her mind. But Bellamy knows there’s no hope of that, so he closes his eyes and tries to get some decent sleep before Clarke’s screaming wakes him again in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took so long! The heat has been killer at work and my manager's been pissing me off and making me stay overtime almost every night, so I haven't been in much of a mood to write. Plus, this chapter was a monster. Shoutout to the lovely [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com/) who helped me edit this!!
> 
> Health PSA for today, use all of the antibiotics prescribed to you, but don't exceed the dosage or use them for other issues! They have a very specific use, and overusage creates antibiotic resistant bacteria
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this! Three more chapters before it's done (I finally figured out the ending), and feel free to yell at me [on tumblr!](http://randommaces.tumblr.com)


	4. Fighting Self

_The dirt of her cell is cool and refreshing against Clarke’s cheek. A small part of her mind, so quiet and distant that it is but an echo of a whisper, notes that it’s not a good idea to place open wounds against dirt. She could get an infection. The larger section of her mind is silent. She’s mostly silent now._

_She doesn’t try to move. Ropes bind her in a cramped position, knees tucked up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. She doesn’t think about the aches in her joints, so fierce that even the smallest amount of attention causes them to burn like flames under her skin. She doesn’t think about her stomach gnawing at her spine, still able to recall the last pittance of a meal and furious that it’s not getting another one. She doesn’t think about the bone sticking out of her leg. Clarke doesn’t think at all. She is silent._

_Statue and Smile haven’t been to see her in a while. She has no idea how long, but it seems like days. She doesn’t care. She’s alone in her cell, alone in her thoughts. But her thoughts are few and far between. One comes back time and time again, one sound and image that hurts her more than any of the tortures inflicted on her ever could. It surfaces again, pain welling deep in her soul._

_Clarke hears Bellamy’s voice and sees a smirk play over his lips. He calls her “princess” with affection, the nickname no longer a curse when it comes from his lips. She can’t remember when this was anymore, who else was there, where they were. Hell, she doesn’t even know if it’s actually a memory. But she can see every errant curl on his head, hear him as if he were standing next to her. If she puts her mind to it she can imagine him walking up to her, picking her up and carrying her away._

_She doesn’t try to imagine it. Just his presence in her mind hurts enough. He is the absence of pain, and as soon as his image fades, the pain returns tenfold. She sees him slipping away like fog on a breeze, and she lets him go. A single tear runs to fall on the dirt, salt stinging the gash on her cheek. It’s funny how she can still feel that amongst all her other wounds._

_The tear has dried by the time someone enters her cell. A new face, this one painted like a skull. Or maybe they are a skull. It doesn’t matter, Skull walks up to her anyway. He unties her and roughly straightens her limbs. She lets out small cries, pitiful in the silence of her cell. The bone sticking out of her leg recedes into it when he pulls on it, relieving the pressure._

_He doesn’t bandage her up or do anything more. He just straightens her limbs, awakening pain that had been slumbering within their stationary forms, and leaves her in her cell. No more tears fall, despite her hoarse whimpers._

\--

Clarke wakes with a gasp that she winces at in the quiet tent. She glances over at Bellamy slumbering on the floor next to her, afraid that she’ll see him rousing to comfort her. Much to her relief, he continues to sleep, unaware of her wakefulness. She lets out a small sigh of relief before laying back down and closing her eyes in case he does wake up to check on her.

She remembers more than she tells him. Any time that she wakes up and he isn’t holding her and coaxing the memories out of her, she lies and says she didn’t dream that night. Sometimes she lies even when she wakes him up with her screams. Clarke just can’t handle how weak and powerless it makes her feel, and she can’t stand the look in Bellamy’s eyes whenever she mentions what the grounders did to her. Because the look in his eyes is a combination of Statue and Smile. Murderous, cold, calculating, and manic all at the same time.

Clarke worries that he’ll run off one day and get himself killed in a foolish attempt to make the Grounders pay for what they did to her. She worries a lot about him, about if he’s starting to regret helping her, if he’s happy, if he hates her. She sways between being angry at him for always hovering over her and feeling ashamed of the fact that he has to hover over her.

Despite her turmoil, Clarke manages to doze off again until she is woken by Bellamy gently shaking her shoulder. He smiles at her, and she tries to smile with a happiness she doesn’t feel. She knows she hasn’t managed to be convincing when concern creases his brow. She hates the way his eyebrows lower when he’s worried about her, and she hates herself for hating anything about him.

“What’s wrong?” _Everything_ , Clarke thinks. “Is it the pain again?”

She resists the urge to cringe away from his hand as he brushes it over the skin behind her ear. She’d decided to keep her head shaved due to the fact that her hair would grow in patchy due to the scar tissue, and look terrible until it grew in completely. Plus, it’s so much easier to clean.

“Yeah, the pain. Just the foot.” It’s not a lie. Her open wounds have mostly healed by now, they just itch terribly all the time, but the foot still requires adjustments and check ups by her mother every week or so.

“I can get some more herbs…” Clarke places a hand on his arm.

“No, it’s not too bad. We can’t take more than we already have.” It’s true. She knows people have probably already started to resent her as much as she resents herself for being a burden.

“Okay then, if you’re sure. I’ll go grab us some breakfast.”

She lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, when he leaves the tent. She likes being alone, these days. It always feels like something’s about to break inside her whenever there’s someone else around, as if there’s something inside her trying to get out. 

Clarke pushes those thoughts out of her mind, determinedly not thinking of the fact that maybe her time with the Grounders had hurt more than just her skin and bones. She levers herself into a sitting position, thankful of the fact that she can at least do that by herself. She feels a weight settle on her chest when Bellamy returns to the tent, wearing a smile and holding roast rabbit.

They eat breakfast in silence. Clarke doesn’t want to talk, knowing she’ll probably snap at him over nothing if she does, and Bellamy respects her silence, knowing she’s not a morning person. Clarke tries to ignore the growing feeling inside of her that seems to be telling her that he’d be safer far, far away from her. That something is going to go wrong if he stays with her.

“I’m going to go hunt today, I’ll be back this evening.” Bellamy states as he cleans up the remains of their breakfast. Clarke smiles genuinely at that, glad she’ll be alone for a whole day.

“That’s a good idea, we have to give back to the camp. And I’m, well…” She gestures at her broken foot, cursing it’s existence. 

“Not a worry, I’ll provide for the both of us.” He presses a quick kiss to her forehead and leaves the tent.

“But you shouldn’t have to.” Clarke mutters to herself once he’s gone.

Anger flares within her, directionless but destructive. She doesn’t know who she’s angry at, or why, or what to do about it. She’s angry at Bellamy for coddling her, angry at herself for being so weak, angry at the anger for making her irrational. Angry at her foot for limiting her, angry at her scars for marking her, angry at her dreams for not giving her any useful information. She wants to scream, to cry, to kill, to destroy. 

But she won’t and she can’t. So Clarke shakily gets out of bed, grabbing the pair of makeshift crutches next to it. She hobbles around her tent, pushing herself until her arms burn and her shoulders are screaming at her, trying to remind her that she’s still not healed fully. She ignores her body, telling it firmly that she needs to get stronger, and this is the only way to do that.

Bellamy doesn’t let her use the crutches. Her mom had said she still needs another two weeks of bedrest before she should even consider using them for small periods of time. But Clarke had persuaded him to let her have them, in case something went wrong and he wasn’t there to carry her out of the tent. Now, every time that Bellamy is gone, Clarke builds up her endurance on them. She doesn’t care that her shoulder had only been relocated a few weeks ago. She needs to be strong again.

She’s so focused on trying, and failing, to burn off some of her rage by working out that she doesn’t hear the fabric of the tent rustling. 

“Clarke! What are you doing?!” Raven shouts at her, and Clarke stops dead in her tracks. Raven knows that Clarke isn’t supposed to be out of bed yet.

“Shit.”

“Yeah, ‘shit’. Let me help you back into your bed. Bellamy would kill me if anything happened to you while he was gone.” Clarke rushes to the bed, pushing away Raven’s attempts at helping. Her fury has only grown every moment she’s been awake, and she needs Raven to leave, or else something bad is going to happen.

“Why were you doing that, Clarke? You know it’s not safe yet, you could hurt yourself. After everything Bellamy’s done—“

“Fuck everything Bellamy’s done!” Clarke cuts her off violently, causing Raven to take a step back in shock.

“You don’t mean that. He saved your life.” Clarke grimaces at that.

“Yeah, I fucking do mean it. He saved my life, huh? More like he ruined my death. I could have died so easily, but instead I’ve had to struggle through all the pain and resetting and recovery shit. I’ll have scars all over my body for the rest of my godforsaken life. Fuck, I can’t even grow my hair!” She knows her voice can probably be heard quite clearly outside of the enclosed area, but Clarke doesn’t care. Not anymore. Let people call her a bitch, let them be afraid of her. Anything if they’ll just leave her alone.

“Yeah, it’s been rough, but it’s getting better, right? So quit being such a brat and be thankful to him. He loves you, you know.” Raven doesn’t back down from the confrontation, and part of Clarke is screaming at her to back down, to apologize now. For the love of everything she’s ever held dear, not to say what she’s about to say.

But that part of her isn’t in control of her speech right now.

“Why should I take relationship advice from someone who couldn’t even get her boyfriend to stay faithful for two weeks after being separated from her? From someone who can’t find a _guy_ willing to love her?” Venom drips from her words, forming them into poisoned darts to strike at the most vulnerable parts of the girl in front of her.

Inside, Clarke is screaming. Screaming that she doesn’t think that, that she thinks Raven and Octavia are a cute couple, that she blames only Finn for Finn’s actions. Screaming at Raven as she leaves the tent, looking as if Clarke had physically punched her in the gut. Screaming at her to stay, to forgive Clarke. 

But she doesn’t try to get Raven to stay. She doesn’t apologize. She doesn’t beg for forgiveness. The part of Clarke that is in control is full of rage and hatred for everything and everyone. It enjoys the pain on Raven’s face, the tears welling in her eyes. So Clarke doesn’t say anything else as Raven flees.

She just smiles.

When Bellamy returns, it’s obvious that Raven or Octavia managed to intercept him on his way to their tent. She reads anger and disappointment on his face, a small flare of guilt cropping up only to be quickly burned away by the darkness inside of her.

“So I see they got to you, huh? Yet you still come back here. Don’t you have your own tent to go back to?” She starts off on the offensive, not wanting Bellamy to be reasonable. Worried he might break down the wall of fire around her and she’ll have to actually figure out what she’s feeling.

His brow creases, confusion warring with anger on his features. He’d never had a particularly good temper, and searching for Clarke seemed to have made it worse. She knows she can get him to leave, if she just pushes a little harder. She’s thinking, trying to figure out his weaknesses, when he walks up to the bed and reaches for her hand.

That’s it.

She is his weakness.

“Don’t fucking touch me. You think that just because you dragged me out of the forest, I owe you my life? I don’t owe you shit.” She sneers, satisfaction coursing through her as he retracts his hand quickly.

“You know I don’t think that, Clarke. Come on, talk to me. Something’s wrong.” His voice is so soothing, so reasonable.

It pisses her off.

“Really? So I stop acting like an invalid, and suddenly something is “wrong”? Voicing my opinion is wrong, now?” He steps back from her with a sharp sigh, and Clarke knows she’s won.

“You know what? Something is wrong. I don’t know what it is, but I know this isn’t you, Clarke. So when you decide to calm down, you know where to find me.” He leaves her, and Clarke smiles again.

She knows he will come back tomorrow, but she’ll have stoked the rage within her even more by then, to the point where he won’t be able to smother it. She’ll be ready to face him.

But he doesn’t come back the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Clarke is alone, with only her anger to keep her warm. And even that is fading. The freedom is sweet, for a while. But it starts to suffocate her just the same as the company of others did.

She wanders around camp on her crutches, putting more strain on her shoulders than she’s supposed to. No one stops her.

She goes past the wall with no protection, no gun, no knife. No one stops her.

She wakes up screaming from nightmares. No one stops her.

She breaks down and cries when the anger finally leaves her. No one stops her.

The next day, she wakes up feeling thoroughly miserable. There’s no rage to dull the pain of what she said to her friends. There’s only the memories that are far too sharp and clear in her mind. The realization that maybe she can’t rebuild the bridges she'd just tried to burn. But she has to try.

Clarke decides to try Octavia first, hoping that the fact she didn’t say anything directly to her will make it easier. Octavia can hold a grudge with the best of them, though, so Clarke gathers her courage outside the tent before hobbling in, eyes still red and puffy from crying earlier.

She’s not sure if it’s good or bad luck that, when she navigates the not quite so simple task of opening the tent flap on crutches, Clarke finds all three of the people she wants to apologize to. They look up at her intrusion, faces startled before becoming upset. Except for Bellamy, who has a glimmer of hope in his eyes. That hope gives her the strength to swing herself forward to face whatever they have to throw at her.

“What do you need, delinquent?” Raven’s voice is icy, using the general term for all inhabitants of The Camp. It’s far less than Clarke deserves, but it stings all the same.

“I-” She clears her throat as her voice cracks, realizing she hasn’t spoken a word out loud for days, “I came here to beg forgiveness. I’m sorry. I… I said such horrible things.”

“Yeah, you did.” Octavia starts to stand, hands forming into fists, but Raven stops her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

“It’s not worth it, O.” Raven murmurs to her lover, and Clarke can feel the tears creeping back up. She’s not worth the effort to attack, why would she be worth forgiving?

“I-I was scared, and I lashed out. I know that you might never be able to forgive me for what I said and how I acted, but I just needed to let you know that I didn’t mean it. Any of it. I’m sorry.” She rushes through the end, fighting off tears, and flees the tent. She can’t look at any of them, can’t bear to see if they hate her or not.

“Clarke! Wait!” She hears the voice of the one person who was silent in the tent. The voice that she’s been craving ever since it left her. Clarke stops and lets Bellamy catch up to her, hastily wiping away the few tears that have managed to escape. She doesn’t turn to look at him, shame casting her gaze firmly on her feet.

So it’s a surprise when she is lifted into strong arms, instinctively dropping the crutches to grab onto Bellamy. She turns her gaze towards him then, seeing a triumphant smile on his face as he begins to walk back towards their tent, carrying her bridal style

“I knew you would come around. I knew it. You still shouldn’t be using the crutches, though.” His smile falters a little as he admonishes her.

“I know. I just.. I couldn’t be alone any longer.” Clarke doesn’t hide her feelings, not this time. Not when she almost lost everything important to her because of it.

“Missed me that much, huh?” He’s teasing her already, clearly ready to get back to the way things were. And she wants that so badly, but she can’t keep sweeping her emotions under the rug.

“I did.” He smiles and she clings a little tighter to him, burying her face in his shoulder as she forces herself to add, “I love you.”

He stops for a moment, and Clarke is worried that it isn’t okay. She knows he loves her, but maybe he won’t believe she loves him after the way she lashed out at him. But her paranoia isn’t allowed to grow much before he presses a kiss to her scalp.

“I love you too, princess.”

And her heart swells, giving her the strength to explain why she acted the way she did. When they get back to their tent, Bellamy writes down every memory she hid from him. He helps her sort out her emotions, promises to help fix things with Raven and Octavia, and shows her that he’ll always be there for her. And Clarke starts to realize that needing help is not the same as being weak. Her friends, her love, her passion, that’s what makes her strong.

Even though she can’t walk, Clarke begins to feel like the warrior she once was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this took a long time because I'm a lazy ass. But hopefully you guys like it!! Two chapters left before this is finished. Y'all should thank [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com) for making me write this, and for editing it!!
> 
> As always, feel free to yell at me [on tumblr!](http://randommaces.tumblr.com) Thanks for viewing/commenting/leaving kudos, it means the world to me <3


	5. Fighting Memories

__

_Clarke wakes up in a cave. She’s had this dream before, some part of her that is Clarke but not Clarke at the same time notices. But it’s not a dream, of course it’s not. She just woke up. She knows that Statue will walk into the cave and begin beating her, the first torture inflicted upon her, but she hasn’t met Statue yet. Clarke is in the past, but she remembers the future._

_The Clarke that knows the future is bracing herself when Statue begins to beat her. The Clarke in the past is in pain. But neither of them are the Clarke in control in this dream. That Clarke is new. Not beaten and broken and weak. Not strong and confident and defiant. The new Clarke is… Laughing._

_The blows connect in the same places that future Clarke recalls, but they don’t cause her any pain. She can feel what laughing Clarke feels. She feels good. With every blow, her heart jumps and she feels more alive. The harder he hits, the more she laughs. She craves the blows, wants him to hit her again, despairs when pain isn’t coursing through her veins like fire._

_This is not the memory. Future Clarke knows this. At least, she thinks she knows this. She’s already had this memory. This is a dream, not a memory. It can’t be real._

_Blood flies from her mouth, and Clarke tastes the metallic sweetness of it as if it were real. She lets out a moan, not of pain, but of pleasure. The blood is like lighter fluid tossed on the flames of agony within her. Suddenly, she isn’t Clarke anymore. The being in her body is an animal, pure rage and lust and heat and life. It is a twisted facsimile of a soul._

_It is not Clarke that laughs along with Smile when he slices her flesh open. It is not Clarke who leans down to lap at an incision in her shoulder. It is not Clarke who begs for more and cries when her tormentors leave._

That is not me, _future Clarke tells herself, needing to cling to that fact in the presence of the feelings coursing in her mind._

But am I the only me?

\--

Clarke wakes up screaming, but starts calming herself almost immediately. It’s so common for her now, waking up with terror spiking her heartrate, that it’s almost become boring. She expects the fear, she knows how to kill it. She isn’t afraid anymore, not when she’s awake.

But this time is different. The fear lingers, a shadow within her. When Bellamy reaches out to her, she gratefully curls into his arms. She seeks protection there, some form of light to chase away the darkness that dream left her with. It doesn’t work.

“Clarke? Was it a new one?” Bellamy’s voice is rough with sleep, slightly slurred as he mumbles into her skin. He’d stopped sleeping on the floor weeks ago, when Clarke said it was ridiculous considering they didn’t have to worry about her injuries as much anymore. Her bones were well set, and he might as well get a good night’s sleep in as close to a proper bed as they have in the Camp.

“N-no. Well….” She takes a deep breath to try and steady her shaking voice. Why had this one gotten to her so badly?

“Hmm?” He prompts with a hum, stroking the back of her head in a familiar gesture of comfort.

“It was the same scene. The first one. Same torture, same Grounders. But it was different. _I_ was different.” Her voice comes out in a whisper at the end, as if saying it will somehow awaken that feral beast from her dream. But she remains Clarke.

“It must have been a nightmare then, not a proper memory, yeah?”

“Mm. Yeah.” Clarke tries to cling to that notion. Obviously it wasn’t real. Even if there was a part of her that acted like that, it wouldn’t have the first time she was tortured. Bellamy accepts her affirmation and presses a gentle kiss to her scalp before falling back to sleep with an ease that she envies. 

Clarke lays awake for a long time, feeling as if something is about to pounce and swallow her whole. She doesn’t truly sleep again that night, dozing a little near dawn. As soon as the sun has properly risen, she disentangles herself from Bellamy—who she has learned turns into a cuddle octopus when he sleeps—and climbs out of bed. 

It’s still quite a process for her to get up. Her foot isn’t fully healed, but Bellamy had hunted for a week to trade enough for a walking cast. That, combined with a cane, allows her to get around with relative ease, but she’s still sore all the time. Her joints creak when she swings her legs over the edge of the bed. A beam of distorted sunlight falls across her thighs, illuminating the scars that ripple over her skin. 

Her hand moves to them, tracing those that she has recalled receiving first. The scars themselves feel nothing, hard ridges of pink and white, but the skin around them seems to make up for it. Perhaps it’s just the sudden contrast from no sensation to sensing, but her skin seems more alive around those reminders of her pain. She’s still absentmindedly tracing her scars when Bellamy wakes up. 

Bellamy sits behind her, pressing his chest to her back and spreading his legs to hang beside hers over the edge of the bed. He hooks his chin over her shoulder and follows her gaze to the marks on her legs. He doesn’t say anything, because there’s really nothing to say. “I’m sorry” doesn’t cut it so far as regret goes, “They don’t look that bad” is a lie, and anything else would sound horribly cheesy. He runs his hands down her arms, Clarke mentally mapping the scars there by the loss of sensation. His fingers trace alongside hers, the warmth of his skin lost whenever they crawl along the ridge of a mark, but doubled when they slip off and brush against her. She inhales sharply, her heart beating wildly from something far more pleasant than terror.

“You survived.” He whispers in her ear, but it seems like so much more than just two simple words. In those words he destroys her insecurities, telling her that the scars are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. He affirms her life, that she is Clarke Griffin, not the feral beast from her dreams. He makes her beauty secondary to her strength, her will. Or perhaps he makes her more beautiful because of it.

No matter what he meant by the words, Clarke find solace in them. She leans back into him, finding the physical power that she lacks in the hard muscles of his arms, in the callouses of his hands on her thighs. Her strength is in her spirit, in her survival, in her mind. Together, they are whole. 

Clarke feels Bellamy press his lips to the soft, undamaged skin behind her ear in a gentle brush before they move lower, his tongue teasing along the edges of scars on her shoulders. She lets out a sigh, her hands finding his and guiding them further up her legs. A small part of Clarke’s mind tells her that she should be getting ready so they can go and run the camp, but she _really_ doesn’t want to.

Bellamy stands up carefully, and Clarke lets out a whimper at the loss of his warmth behind her. He chuckles as he picks her up to reposition her on the bed.

“Can’t be getting too acrobatic yet, Princess.” He says with a devious smile as he climbs back onto the bed, kneeling with his knees touching the inside of her own.

“It’s just my foot.” Clarke replies, not really wanting to be talking right now. So she leans up and wraps her arms around Bellamy’s neck, pressing her lips to his in an attempt to get him to shut up and do something. Teasing is nice and all, but they really do have to get to work.

He responds by lowering them back to the bed, moving his lips against hers and rolling his hips slowly. Clarke wants to drink in the decadence of a slow, lazy fuck in the morning, but a part of her wants more. Passion, fire, energy. So she parts her lips from his and moves to place her mouth against the shell of his ear. She nibbles lightly at the lobe before whispering one word.

“More.” And she bites sharply at his ear, prompting a sharp gasp followed by a groan as she grinds her hips against his hardness.

Bellamy follows her monosyllabic instruction, his hands moving down her body to roughly caress her bare breasts. She arches into his touch, leaning her head to the side to expose her neck as his lips and teeth find purchase there. Clarke drags her fingernails down his back, getting a sharp nip of teeth on her neck in response. She presses her body to his, feeling every inch of her unmarked skin on fire.

“Bellamy.” She moans his name and rolls her hips once again, wanting there to be nothing in between them.

“Fuck.” He groans into her neck, before pulling his boxers down and roughly yanking her panties to the side. He sinks into her slowly, Clarke savouring the feeling of him on unscarred flesh. He holds himself above her on his forearms as he rocks within her, gentle rolls of his hips causing Clarke to push back against him.

“That all you got, rebel?” She teases, wanting more. She wants to forget everything in the feel of him. He doesn’t say anything, but Clarke gets what she wants.

Bellamy begins to thrust sharply into her, the force of his actions drawing a low moan out of Clarke that she tries and fails to choke down. She brings a fist to her mouth in an attempt to avoid embarrassing herself by waking the camp with her sex noises, but Bellamy grabs her wrist.

“No.” He growls, “I want to hear you. I don’t give a fuck who knows.” 

“Bell…” Clarke doesn’t have any words to form a reply, she just has his name and a string of curses that she moans in a low voice as her climax builds within her. His movements start to get more frantic, and Clarke desperately claws for her climax, wanting release. Bellamy buries his face in her neck and bites down as he comes, which proves to be her undoing. Clarke lets out a sharp gasp, silent in her orgasm, clenching around him with his teeth buried in her neck. Bellamy pulls out and rolls over, looking over at her with a huge grin on his face.

“Can we wake up like that every morning?” Clarke grins back and smacks him playfully as she regains her breath.

“Come on, idiot, we have a camp to run.”

When they return to their tent later that night, Clarke is so exhausted that she forgets to be afraid of what the night may bring.

\--

Good morning, _a voice whispers in Clarke’s mind as she wakes up on the dirt floor of her cell, tied and starved and injured. She remembers this, it’s the first time she met Skull. But no one spoke to her that time. She still feels the pain and sore joints and hunger, but she doesn’t feel them for what they are. Her perception is changed. Instead of feeling weakened by her current state, she feels stronger._

_Skull walks into her cell, but it’s not just skull. She knows this is the same memory, her broken leg and foetal position are the same, but he was alone in her memory. Now he is accompanied by Anya, the one grounder Clarke knows by name._

_“Straighten her out. It won’t do to have her as a permanent cripple.”_

_The memory is the same in Skulls actions. He doesn’t speak, he merely performs his job. But her reactions are different. She smiles when he straightens her limbs, looks to Anya for approval after she endures the setting of her leg. Anya looks at her as if she is something less than human, less than animal. As if she is a tool._

_“You still understand us, correct?” It takes Clarke a minute to realize that Anya is talking to her._

_“Ye-” It’s more of a croak, Clarke’s voice having been unused for so long, but Anya seems to understand just fine._

_“Good. Then I have some news for you. Clarke Griffin is dead.”_

_Clarke feels a flare of pain in her eyebrows as they draw in in confusion. How can she be dead? She’s sitting right there, in her own blood and filth. Does this mean they’re going to kill her?_

_“Lucky for you,” Anya continues, “You are not Clarke Griffin. Are you?”_

_“N… I am Clarke…” She’s confused as she replies. It’s the only thing she knows for certain in this cell where memories warp and dreams bleed into reality. She knows she is Clarke Griffin._

_The toe of a boot meets her head, and everything goes black._

Not yet, _the voice from before whispers again._

_Clarke opens her eyes, seeing all of her tormentors standing before her. Smile is twitching with energy, Statue lives up to his namesake, and Skull seems bored with the whole scenario. She can feel the lovely ropes cutting into her wrists again, and she looks at Anya, standing in front of her torturers._

_“Who are you?” Anya asks, a blade appearing in her hand._

_“C...larke.” It’s the one fact she has. Anya’s eyes narrow in a glare and she steps forward. She grabs a chunk of Clarke’s hair and slices, the blade catching a small segment of skin at the end. There’s something about this that hits Clarke harder than the blows, as if by taking her hair they were somehow touching some part of her inner self. She had never realized how much she loved her hair._

_“Who are you?” Anya is close enough that Clarke can smell stale meat on her breath. She wants to lie, but she doesn’t know what to say._

_“Clarke.” Her voice is stronger, even for the pain causing a slight tremor._

_Another bunch of hair, more skin peeled away with it. The question is asked again. She replies the same way._

_“Who are you?”_

_“Clarke.”_

_Slice._

_“Who are you?”_

_“Clarke!”_

_A scream accompanies the slice._

_“Who are you?”_

_“I don’t know!”_

_Half of her hair is missing, and much of her scalp with it. But it doesn’t matter. That hair, that skin, that pain belonged to Clarke. And clearly she is not Clarke. She’s not sure who or what she is, but the answer of not knowing got the torment to stop. Clearly that must be right._

_Anya turns and walks away, the other people following her. Nothing else is said. Nothing else need to be said. She has no questions. Only people have questions, and she’s not sure if she’s a person anymore. Probably not, but she’ll have to wait to find out. There’s only one thing she knows for sure._

_Clarke Griffin is dead._

\--

Clarke jumps out of bed with a shout, panic sinking sharp claws deep within her. She frantically scans the darkness of the tent, searching for grounders and finding only a shocked Bellamy. He slowly stands up and approaches her, hands outstretched as if approaching a wild animal.

_Maybe you are a wild animal_ , a voice within her whispers.

Clarke can’t find it in herself to deny it, semi-crouched and shaking with adrenaline. Bellamy is saying something as he walks towards her, words slipping past her without leaving any imprint. But his tone is soothing, and she doesn’t attack when he reaches her and places a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Clarke.” His voice is a whisper, but it manages to pierce her fear-induced trance. Tense muscles relax simultaneously, and she crumples to the ground. Bellamy catches her and guides her down, gathering her now limp body into his arms. She buries her head in his shoulder, hiding from the world.

“Bell…” Her voice is strangled with sobs. 

“Hush, sweetheart, it’s okay. I’ve got you. They can’t hurt you anymore.” It’s the same script as always, but it’s different this time. This time, she’s not afraid of the Grounders. So Clarke shakes her head slightly against his skin, and Bellamy still his slight calming movements.

“Not afraid of them.” Clarke isn’t sure if he can hear her, with how quietly she’s speaking, but she can’t hide something like this. “It’s me. I… I don’t know what’s real. The memories I’ve had so far, or the ones I’m having now. If it’s the ones I’m having now…. I don’t know who I am.”

Bellamy is silent for a long time, and fear grows in Clarke’s heart with every second that passes.

“We’re going to go see your mom tomorrow, okay? I don’t care how much it costs, we’ll get this sorted out. And even if you forget who you are, I’ll always be here to remind you. You’re my princess, yeah?”

Clarke smiles through her tears and nods, but there is still fear rooted deep within her. Like something has awoken, something that would be best left undisturbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I am a turd and haven't posted anything in a long time. Basically, I was trying to force myself to write a prompt when I had nooo inspiration for it, and it was running completely contrary to what I felt like writing. So I finally gave in and wrote this. Edited by the writer of amazing hickey-fics [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com), who I have officially been talking to for one month from yesterday!
> 
> Feel free to yell at me [on tumblr!](http://randommaces.tumblr.com) As always, thanks for commenting/viewing/leaving kudos <3


	6. Failing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, there's some sort of messed up shit in this chapter, please check the end notes if you're worried you might be triggered!

Awareness of her surroundings returns to Clarke, a gentle whisper of sounds followed by a quick rush of images. She blinks a few times as disjointed scenes clarify to the inside of the medical ward in Arkdown.

“...has it happened?” Her mother’s finishes a question that Clarke never heard the beginning of.

“Sorry, what?” 

“How often have those dreams you’ve been telling us about happened? The feelings of not being yourself?” Abbie’s voice is calm, but there’s the slightest crease between her eyebrows that betrays her concern.

“Um, yeah. Twice now.” Or was it three times? Clarke’s memory seems to be playing tricks on her. “The feelings are after I wake up, sort of like there’s someone standing over my shoulder, watching everything I do.”

Just mentioning it, Clarke can feel the phantom presence that her mind projects within itself. Something capable of great evil, but unwilling to act on its urges. Less like a person and more like a gun or a knife, something vicious but harmless without someone wielding it. Its threat is in the possibility of what someone unscrupulous could do with it, not in its own existence.

“Well, I’ll look into it.” Abbie sighs and closes the book she’s been taking notes in. How much had Clarke told her? “You don’t have to pay to talk to the psych staff, then.”

“Thanks, it’s appreciated.” Bellamy’s voice rumbles next to her, and Clarke almost jumps. She hadn’t realized he was standing behind her. 

“Not a problem. You guys should stick around tonight, I’ll see what I can come up with by then. Thankfully you aren’t charged for visiting, as long as I don’t feed you or give you anything.” Her lips draw into a thin line that Clarke knows to be annoyance. 

“Again, thanks. I can hunt us some dinner before sunset.” Abbie nods at Bellamy and Clarke feels his arm loop around her waist, providing some support as they make their way out of the building with her limping.

“What was that in there?” Bellamy asks once they pass the doorway and are out of earshot of her mother.

“What was what?” Clarke honestly doesn’t know, she can’t seem to draw up any memories of talking to her mother. Or of their trip over, or waking up in the morning. Her mind seems to be blank, even though she was obviously doing things.

“You zoned out for a minute, and then you seemed sort of jumpy. Is everything okay?” The arm around her waist gives a gentle squeeze, comforting and protective.

“Yeah…” Clarke isn’t okay, she’s fairly certain, but she feels like something terrible will happen if she tells Bellamy that, “Just haven’t been getting much sleep. And it’s sort of nerve wracking, expecting Grounders to pop up at any second.”

That had been the latest trend in her dreams, a memory of some benign event that had happened during the day with the small addition of Grounders. Sometimes the Grounder was just hiding in the background, sometimes an army of them swarmed the Camp and slaughtered everyone. Clarke isn’t quite sure which is worse; the quiet, constant threat or watching everyone she cares about being ripped apart by barbarians. At least death is final.

“I really don’t want to leave you alone to hunt….” Bellamy frowns as they reach her mother’s home, a thrown together shack from Ark debris that is much nicer on the inside than the outside, but Clarke gives him a weak smile and shakes her head.

“I’ll be fine, Bell. Where’s safer than a city crawling with trained guards?” When his frown remains, she continues, “I promise not to leave the building until you get back, okay? I’ll be alright.”

He’s silent for a while before sighing, clearly seeing no alternative. Hiring a guard would mean he’d have to stay out longer on his hunt, which would sort of defeat the purpose. Not that a guard would do much good if Clarke’s nightmares became a reality

“I don’t like it, but okay.” He presses his lips to her forehead briefly, and Clarke resists a sudden urge to pull him further down and kiss him properly, to distract him and make him not leave her. He helps her to a couch inside before leaving without another word, casting a final worried glance over his shoulder as the door shuts.

\--  
 _  
“Tool…”_

_“Scalpel….”_

_“Remember….”_

_“Forget…”_

_Wisps of conversation flit through Clarke’s mind like tendrils of fog, illusive yet present. She can’t seem to focus on anything. There’s something blocking her from this memory, some barrier holding her back. She’s curious, but she feels like there’s something bad waiting for her, something she doesn’t want to remember._

You do want to remember it, but not yet, _the voice chuckles_ , Now wake up.

\--

“...so much.” Clarke is startled at her lips moving of their own accord, saying words she never consciously formed.

“Like I said before, it’s not a problem, Clarke. I’m just glad we’ve got you back, setting your mind at ease by showing you the security protocols we have in place isn’t an inconvenience at all.” Apparently she had been thanking Chancellor Jaha. Why had she wanted to check the security? She trusts the Arkers, hell, she was one of them not too long ago.

“Well, it’s really more Bellamy who’s worried, but I figured I can at least explain them to him properly now.” Clarke’s heart rate spikes with fear. She definitely didn’t form those words, or ask her lips to move, or prompt the air to leave her lungs and create sound. She wasn’t the one talking.

She tries to form words of her own, to tell Jaha that something is very, very wrong, but a weight settles on her chest, crushing her vocal chords and the words that never see the light of day. Meanwhile, her face stays perfectly pleasant as Jaha claps a hand on her shoulder, helps her back into her mother’s house, and says goodbye. It’s only when he leaves that some small amount of control over her body returns to her.

She immediately tries to call for help, but a strangled whisper is the only noise that comes out. Attempting to exit the building proves just as fruitless. In the end, Clarke finds that she can whisper and walk within the house, but nothing that would enable her to warn anyone about the potential disaster that she is becoming. Who knows what the being in control of her body could do.

As soon as she considers an action, like writing a note or doing something horribly out of character for herself in an attempt to indicate that she isn’t okay, Clarke finds herself unable to do it. It makes sense, of course. Whatever is controlling her is within her mind, so it would know if she tried to do anything before she does it.

By the time Bellamy walks in with a cleaned rabbit, chatting lightly with her mother, Clarke has accepted the new manner of things. Act like nothing’s wrong and she’s allowed to be the one doing the acting. Mess up and the other creature takes over. Simple rules.

Except she tries to fight back when she lays her eyes on Bellamy, because suddenly the benign presence becomes malevolent. As if it wants nothing more than to rip him to shreds. Clarke has a horrible feeling that if she messes up and it gets control of her body again, she might do just that. So she smiles and nods when he asks if she’s doing okay. He hands the rabbit to Abbie for cooking and sits on the couch next to Clarke.

“Hunt was good, then?” _Keep the topic light and centered on something other than yourself and you might just make it through this_ , Clarke reminds herself. She has to protect the man next to her, has to keep him safe from her.

_You can’t._

It takes all of Clarke’s will to keep her facial expression calm when a voice that is not her own speaks up in her mind. She shouldn’t be that surprised, really, considering it had been speaking through her lips fairly recently. But it makes the presence something less animalistic, more capable of well thought out destruction. 

“Yeah, fairly quick once I got out of Arkdown. They’ve expanded even more. You weren’t too bored here?” His arm around her shoulder is a comforting anchor for her sanity, so Clarke leans more heavily on him, desperate for some sort of link to reality within her waking nightmare.

“Well, I may have broken my promise slightly.” The weight doesn’t crush her words into nothingness, so Clarke continues, “I was feeling really nervous, so Chancellor Jaha showed me all the security measures in place. I swear I was with him the whole time, though.”

_Are you so sure about that?_ The voice taunts her, flashing multiple possible scenes in her mind. Jaha finding her snooping around the weapons storage and her using nerves as an excuse for being there. Slipping away while he’s tracking someone down, doing something unknown. Or just following him obediently, doing nothing wrong or suspicious.

Not sure at all then, good. Clarke accepts it and moves on. Nothing she can do at this point will get accurate memories to return to her, so she has to focus on breaking free of whatever duplicitous tormentor has her under control. 

Bellamy shifts uncomfortably next to her at the mention of Jaha. “I don’t trust him. He could hurt you to get back at me.” Clarke and her mother snort in unison at the concept of Thelonious hurting her.

“Oh please, Bellamy, he’s been a family friend for ages. He helped raise me, and his son was my best friend. I highly doubt he’s going to hurt me because you tried to assassinate him, a crime which has been pardoned, in case you forgot.”

“Yeah, but a pardon isn’t necessarily personal forgiveness.” He grumbles unhappily, pausing for a moment before sighing, “I just… I worry, Clarke. You know I couldn’t stand losing you again.”

_As if he ever got you back_ , the voice taunts.

_You make no sense_ , Clarke thinks back at it angrily, somehow hoping that engaging her insanity will stop it. The voice just laughs.

“You’re not going to lose me, Bell. I promise you.” The voice laughs harder, and Clarke’s heart sinks. Maybe it’s just her own mind messing with her, trying to trip her up for some unknown, self-loathing reason.

Maybe.

“I’ll hold you to that, Princess.” He kisses her head lightly before going to help her mother with the final dinner preparations. The voice in Clarke’s head silences, receding into an amused presence lingering about the edges of her consciousness. She lets out a breath that she’d been holding in for a while, relieved to have her mind mostly back under her control. 

Clarke’s offer to help gets, predictably, shot down. Within a few minutes dinner is ready, Bellamy and Abbie carrying the stir-fry of rabbit and assorted vegetables over, and taking seats on either side of Clarke. It’s informal, just a family eating a meal together while lounging on the couch. If it weren’t for the dark shadow creeping through Clarke’s mind, she could almost feel at peace.

They eat the meal in silence, all of them savouring the taste of meat. Even rabbit, as often as Clarke’s had it, still tastes amazing. That was one thing they’d been unable to maintain on the Ark, a supply of livestock. They’d had fruit and veg on occasion in the Griffin households, but Bellamy had probably never had anything other than nutrition packs and texture bases before coming down to Earth. Everything on Earth is just better than on the Ark, Clarke decides. Except for the enemies.

“So, I talked to the psych team.” Abigail begins as Bellamy clears away their dishes. “And I want you to talk to them tomorrow. I know it’ll be expensive, but I think it could be valuable, and I’ll help cover the costs as much as I can. Right now, their basis diagnosis is delayed onset or rapidly aggravating PTSD. It’s possible that the… memories were a sign of post traumatic stress, and we haven’t been addressing it properly, so it’s been progressing to more panic ridden states.”

Clarke doesn’t like the idea of forcing her mother and Bellamy to pay for yet more treatments for her. Plus the very idea of going to talk to the psychoanalytic team that the Ark employs makes her feel uncomfortable. She already has one unwanted being in her brain, she doesn’t exactly want to invite more people in to poke around. But maybe they could flush it out. They are trained professionals, after all. If anyone can help her become, well, her again, it’s them.

“Okay.” Clarke agrees, much to her mother’s evident relief. And Bellamy’s, if the muttered “Good.” is anything to go by. Abbie pats Clarke’s knee in a supportive and approving gesture before getting up and brushing off her offer of help once again. Even though Clarke is pretty much fine now, her mother and Bellamy will always do everything for her. This time, Clarke lets them as she decides to have a conversation with… herself.

_Okay, I know you’re there._ She focuses on making the thoughts distinct and projecting them at where the darkness seems deepest in her mind.

_Always._

_What are you?_ No use beating around the bush, it knows what she wants anyway.

_I am you as you should be. As you really are._ The voice sounds proud, with an almost seductive purr to it. 

_No, you’re not. I am me. I know that much._ She should have known it would be useless. But Clarke has to try to at least get some information.

_Really? And who are you?_ It’s taunting her, drawing her into a trap. Clarke can feel it, but she clings to the fact that at least she knows she’s right in this.

_I am Clarke Griffin._ She could continue to go on, to list the facts and idiosyncrasies that make her who she is, but that’s a simple enough answer. 

_Do you want to know what I know, Clarke Griffin?_

Clarke doesn’t reply. She doesn’t want to know, but she knows it will tell her anyway. A mere second passes before it informs her.

_Clarke Griffin is dead._

With that, it draws out of her mind entirely, leaving Clarke feeling numb. That can’t be possible. She can’t be dead. She’s right here, sitting on the couch, listening to her mother and the love of her life chat idly in the kitchen as they wash dishes.

But what is death, really. Death of the body versus death of the mind. Obviously her body isn’t dead, she’s breathing and she can feel her heart beating within her chest, pumping blood to her fully functioning brain. But Clarke had seen patients of her mother’s, people who were alive and dead at the same time. They had no mind, despite having a brain. Obviously Clarke isn’t brain-dead like them, but perhaps she’s something different. If the voice can control her, restrict her, use her, who’s to say that it isn’t the owner of her body now? She could just be some fragment that it has allowed to live, that it can crush at any time.

Clarke doesn’t register any of the chatter as the evening grows on. She’s too busy trying to recall every fact of her life. Every joke she’s ever laughed at, ever crush she’s ever had, every meal she’s ever consumed. If she can remember everything, than maybe she can feel more substantial. More real.

But memories slip between her fingers. She gets a fragment of a smile, or a certain scent, but she can’t remember the person or the object. The more she tries to remember, the more things fade. She ends up more frightened than ever, but her face doesn’t betray that. No, her face is perfectly content, and she evens chimes in on occasion. The shadow has her. Or the shadow is her.

Abbie sets her up on the couch for the night and pulls out some improvised sleeping mats for herself and Bellamy. Clarke hugs them as tightly as she can before they go to sleep, dreading the shadows that creep closer to her as the lights are extinguished one by one. With the shadows comes sleep.

And with sleep comes oblivion.

\--

_It opens its eyes at the sound of people. It sees its owner, Anya, and another man. It is not chained today, so it kneels before Anya. Its knees are split and bloodied, but the sensation of rocks grinding into its flesh isn’t unpleasant. It’s intriguing, almost pleasurable. Except tools don’t feel pleasure._

_“So you really think we can use her for this?” The man asks._

_“Of course. It’s completely reprogrammed at this point. It wouldn’t even know how to respond if you called it a she.”_

_“Dehumanized, huh? You’ve never managed to pull that one off before.”_

_“I did it this time. Go ahead and test her.” Its owner is angry. It is indifferent, because it has not been given a command._

_The man smiles and walks towards it, his boots thudding heavily against the dirt. It does not move. He steps in between it and Anya, but it does not look up at him. It has not been given permission._

_“Who are you?”_

_The question is directed at it, but it cannot answer. “Who” is a question of identity. It does not have an identity. It is a tool, an object to be used in whatever manner its owner sees fit. Unable to answer the question properly, it remains silent._

_Hardened leather connects with its jaw, knocking it to the ground. It immediately clambers back to its kneeling position. Blood drips down its chin, falling unheeded to the dirt. It keeps its head bowed, eyes trained on the boots before it._

_“I said, who are you? Answer me.”_

_It doesn’t answer. It gets kicked again. It feels the pain, but it sparks no response. No flinching, no fear, no emotions. It can’t feel anything beyond physical stimulation._

_“Command it to answer me, Anya.” Anya smiles at that, crossing her arms._

_“Tell him why you aren’t answering him.”_

_It doesn’t take time to gather its thoughts. It doesn’t need to. Explaining itself is just a matter of reciting information._

_“I do not have a direct answer to his question. I am not a who. I am a tool. Tools can only answer to what they are and what their purpose is. They are no one.” Its voice is mechanical, even cadence, monotone._

_“What is your purpose?” The man again. This question is easy for it to answer._

_“I have none. I am to serve my owner in any way they see fit to wield me. I am unrefined.” Unrefined. Without a specialized meaning to its existence. If it could wish, it would wish to be refined._

_“And if I wished to give you a purpose, could you be reforged?” Anya asks this._

_“Yes.”_

_The man nods to Anya and leaves. Her softer shoes take their place in its vision, slipping silently across the ground._

_“I will repurpose you. You will become a specialized tool, for removing a particularly annoying tumor. You will be my Scalpel. Before we begin your forging, though, I need to know something. Do you remember Clarke Griffin?”_

_It shouldn’t feel fear at that name. It shouldn’t feel anything at all. It is unsure of how to proceed, and then it realizes it shouldn’t be unsure. It doesn’t fear consequences. It doesn’t fear punishment. It has no reason to withhold information, because information is not its to keep. So it digs into its memory and recites a fact._

_“I remember.”_

_Anya makes a pleased noise. “You must remember her. How to be her, how to act like her. You must convince me that you are her. Make a mould and hide yourself within it. I will teach you your mission, and then I will make you forget. Let us begin.”_

_It starts by feeling the pain as Anya grabs it by the throat and throws it against the rough rock wall, tying it in place with rough ropes. A version of it, more alive but not quite human, forms in that impact, with Anya’s permission. A splintered fragment of a soul, human from memories of Clarke but without her morals. It could destroy that shadow, but it leaves it. When it becomes Clarke, for a while, it needs a safety to control her. It allows the shadow to grow, knowing it will keep Clarke in line and destroy her when the time comes. And then it will emerge again, destroying the weak being that is manifesting in its mind, in its true form._

_A Scalpel._

\--

It remembers everything. Remembers the pain when it stopped being pain, remembers when it stopped fighting the orders it was given, remembers when it agreed to the plan, remembers the tea they gave it to help it forget. Remembers what the switch in its hand is for. A flick of a switch. An explosion. A disaster. It’s mission is done.

Amidst the screaming and the blossoming flames the being that was once Clarke stands still, an angel of destruction. People run past her, but it pays them no heed. Why should it worry about them when they’re just corpses that haven’t realized it yet? But one unfortunate soul runs to it, not past it. It remembers him. Bellamy. He should go on. Move past it. But he won’t.

“Clarke! What are you doing?! We have to go!” He shouts over the chaos. He stares at it for a moment before he notices the switch in its hand and he pales.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy.” Its voice is almost lost in the cacophony. It pulls out a gun, and the sound of the shot is barely audible. It approaches the crumpled body on the ground, wondering what this feeling in its chest is. It seems reminiscent of regret, or sorrow, but it shouldn’t be feeling anything. Feelings are for humans, and it is less than human.

“Why, Clarke?” Blood bubbles around his words, and it looks at the dying man. It doesn’t have to answer, he is not its owner, but it replies anyway.

“I am not Clarke. I did this because it is my purpose.” It is a tool. A tool accomplishes a task. This was its task.

“You are Clarke. I know you are. I know you’re still Clarke, somewhere in there.” He pleads with it, but he is wrong.

“I am not. Clarke Griffin is dead. I am a Scalpel.” It watches with curiosity as his face falls and tears pour from his eyes. It should not be curious.

“I told you I would always be here to remind you who you are. Remember that? Remember me, all the time we spent together?” It wonders why he isn’t dead yet.

“I do remember. But it means nothing. I am not Clarke Griffin.” 

“Scalpel!” The sharp voice of its owner rings through the madness around it, and it looks to see Anya approaching it. “Why are you talking to a corpse? Come on, we have work to do.”

It looks back at Bellamy’s fallen form, sees the bullet hole in his forehead for the first time. He died almost as soon as the bullet hit him. It turns away from the corpse it had been conversing with and follows its owner through a growing battle. Grounders are massacring the confused Arkers, spilling blood freely onto the trampled soil. It doesn’t care. It is merely a tool, and its job is done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //EDIT: So, the messed up, potentially triggering shit is that Clarke was a brainwashed sleeper agent and she loses her sense of self and kills Bellamy. If that's going to fuck you up, please skip this chapter and imagine whatever ending you want! I don't want anyone to be hurt by something I wrote  
> END EDIT//
> 
> IT'S FUCKING DONE
> 
> I DID IT
> 
> I FINISHED IT
> 
> This is the longest story I have ever completed, and my first multichap fanfic, so I would just like to thank you all for sticking with me this long! I hope you enjoyed it/hated it in a good way. This fic has been one hell of an experience to write, and I couldn't have done it without the surprisingly still alive [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com)! And you guys, who send me lovely comments and help me to live through my shifts whenever I get them on break. Everyone is perfect <3
> 
> Follow me [on tumblr](http://randommaces.tumblr.com) for more fics and me being an idiot. More love to everyone who reads/comments/leaves kudos on this, I will never stop feeling the love! 
> 
> Keep kicking ass, my darlings, I'll see you around!


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